"After more than 50 years in the military and politics, I am still amazed to see how upset people can get over nothing. Lifting the ban on gays in the military isn't exactly nothing, but it's pretty damned close
Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar. They'll still be serving long after we're all dead and buried. That should not surprise anyone.
But most Americans should be shocked to know that while the country's economy is going down the tubes, the military has wasted half a billion dollars over the past decade chasing down gays and running them out of the armed services.
It's no great secret that military studies have proved again and again that there's no valid reason for keeping the ban on gays. Some thought gays were crasy, but then found that wasn't true. then they decided that gays were a security risk, but again the Department of Defense decided that wasn't so-in fact, one study by the Navy in 1956 that was never made public found gays to be good security risks. Even Larry Korb, President Reagan's man in charge of implementing the Pentagon ban on gays, now admits that it was a dumb idea. No wonder my friend Dick Cheney, secretary of defense under President Bush, called it 'a bit of an old chestnut'"
Barry Goldwater is correct – homosexuals have served there country honorably and will continue to serve there country honorably. The root question lies, why does it really matter?
Does anyone honestly think that two American soldiers are going to get into a gun fight because another solider is gay?
Do they think a gay solider is going to rape another solider because they think they are attractive?
If these are really the case, than why do they allow women into the military – wait, because adultery is a punishable crime in the military. So, if a gay man cheated on his gay husband, he would be kicked out on the same charges.
It appears to me that this is type of thinking is designed for only one thing – to divide the American people from fighting the real social battles and the true problems facing this country: the rapid detraction of the liberties of the people, the enslavement of the youth of the country in military drafts, and a tax code that is stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars away from the working peoples of this country, and a Federal Reserve Board that is lining their pockets with our tax money.
As long as the people are divided, thought to think everyone is groups instead of as one American People, we will continue down the slipping slope down the road to serfdom until we can not remember, nor recognize the country we once lived in.